Observations on economics, the academy, the wider world, and things that run on rails.

9.2.18

TRADE UNITES, POLITICS DIVIDES.

A Hamburg grocery store removed imported foodstuffs in order to send a virtue signal. "In an effort to show people how boring Germany would be without diversity, their customers were left to do without food they consume regularly, such as tomatoes from Spain, olives from Greece, or cheese from France." That may not be the best way to send the message, as Germany's diversity initiatives, like those elsewhere, are to persuade people to be neighborly. National Brotherhood Week stuff, if you will. Commerce, however, is a good social lubricant, flattening the world, if you will.

It's probably better, dear reader, that the Germans purchase their olives and cheese with Euro rather than with bullets.